We are about to stage the greatest show on earth in the greatest city on
earth, and if you believe much of the media we are all in the grip of
paralysing stage fright.

We’ve got an advanced case of Olympo-funk. We agonise about the traffic, when
our transport systems are performing well and the world’s athletes are
arriving on time.

We worry about security, when we always planned to have a strong military role
in making our games as safe as possible.

We are nervous about our Olympic accommodation — when our Stratford village is
already being showered with foreign praise.

We gnaw our fingernails about the blinking weather, when it seems to be
brightening up a bit — and anyway, it’s England in July for goodness sake
and a spot of rain never hurt anyone.

In just over a week London is going to raise the curtain on a gigantic
festival of sport and culture.

Billions of viewers will behold the Olympic Park, with all its fantastic and
beautiful structures — built on time and under budget, a great global
calling card for British construction and engineering.

And on every side they will see proof London is also the cultural capital of
the world. I’m not just talking about a few fire-eaters, or chaps painted
silver making jerky movements. The bridges on the river will be lit up with
state of the art displays.

There will be operas popping up on canals, world-class rock and pop acts in
the parks, zipwires, family entertainment of all kinds — and all of it FREE.

Business leaders from around the world will see the neo-Victorian surge of
transport investment — much of it Olympic-driven — creating the platform for
future prosperity. We have a spanking new air-conditioned train from Croydon
to east London, we have faster trains on the Jubilee Line, a 50 per cent
expansion of the DLR and a programme to make our Tube as automatic and
efficient as the best you can find in Asia.

We have the best bike hire scheme in the world, a new London bus — the
cleanest on the market — and on Sunday the new Emirates Air Line cable car,
largely privately financed, took 21,000 people to see stunning views of east
London. This week’s good employment figures show these and other projects
are creating tens of thousands of jobs.

Already the Olympics have found work for 37,000 previously unemployed — and
together with investments such as The Shard and Westfield they are helping
to drive the whole UK economy.

Over the next few weeks my City Hall team are showing global investors the
amazing opportunities in London.

I know they will be dazzled — and they are here thanks to the Games.

In fact, I am only really worried about one thing.

Can we do as well as last time?

Can we beat France? Can we beat Australia? Of course we can.

And if we get it right, we can make the Olympics a big win for jobs and growth
as well — so let’s get behind our team and the Games.